7th Ward house is almost a home again, four years after Katrina

Jennifer Zdon / The Times-PicayuneEarnest Hammond, 71, is a happy man: His 7th Ward house has been gutted and soon will be renovated, thanks to volunteers.

His house is almost habitable. That makes Earnest Hammond, 71, almost giddy.

"C'mon and look at this!" he said on a recent afternoon, eager to usher a visitor through his front door.

Stacks of wallboard sat sit in his living room, waiting to be installed. Throughout the 7th Ward house that Hammond bought in 1973, the freshly sandblasted interior smelled like new wood, and the wall frames were strung with brand-new wiring and filled with insulation, thanks to the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana's Rebuild Program and its volunteers.

"And listen!" said Hammond, as he reached into his bathroom and flushed the toilet, successfully. Just outside the door, he again smiled widely as he demonstrated that he now has a brand-new electric meter and new doors. "And they lock, " he said, grinning and tapping his pocket, which gave a soft jingle from the keys held inside.

Just four months ago, Hammond's flood-ravaged house crawled with mold and he was near despair when a social worker from UNITY of Greater New Orleans found him during the agency's routine searches of abandoned buildings. At the time, FEMA was threatening to prosecute Hammond if he didn't move out of his trailer, the only place he had with a functional bathroom and electricity. But Hammond was determined to stay near his home, inside it if necessary. "This is the only thing I own, " he said then. "I can't walk off and leave this."

So Hammond, a retired delivery man, stayed put, spending his days tending an enormous garden on his property and collecting tens of thousands of aluminum cans to raise rehab money. His house is a triplex and so it was ineligible for the Road Home program, which only offers grants to single-family homes and duplexes.

Because metal prices have been low, he has sold some of his cans for a few hundred dollars here and there but is storing others with hopes that salvage-yard prices rise.

Hammond got a reprieve from FEMA at the end of May when the agency backed down, saying that it was implementing transition measures for the roughly 2,000 metro-area households that remained in trailers, most of them homeowners who were stalled in their rebuilding efforts. "No one will face eviction while transition measures are implemented, " FEMA spokesman Clark Stevens said.

Hammond said that occasionally someone from FEMA will call to get a progress report on his rebuilding. "And I'll say, 'It's coming. It's coming good, ' " he said gleefully.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which provided some rental-assistance vouchers for renters who were still living in FEMA trailers in May, also has awarded block grants to the state to help the homeowners in trailers who are having trouble rebuilding. Last month, the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency and the Louisiana Recovery Authority put out a request for proposals for a new $20 million program that will award grant money to some of the community's time-tested housing-rehabilitation groups.

Jennifer Zdon / The Times-Picayune Hammond thanks Martha Kegel, executive director of Unity of Greater New Orleans, after a visit at his home Sept. 1.

By assisting nonprofit groups that have operated since the storm with volunteers and extremely tight budgets, the pilot program could "end the growing tragedy of homeowners having to live in their flood-damaged, unrepaired homes, " said Martha Kegel, director of UNITY, whose outreach workers have been finding between five and 10 squatters living in abandoned buildings each week, a good share of them homeowners with stalled or never-begun rebuilding efforts.

When HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan announced the rebuilding program during a visit to the city last week, he recalled a previous visit in June, when he and his family joined volunteers from the St. Bernard Project, to help rebuild a home in Gentilly. "For families who continue to face obstacles on the way home, philanthropic efforts are absolutely critical, " Donovan said.

Jennifer Zdon / The Times-PicayuneHammond walks past his papaya trees in the garden of his 7th Ward house.

While Hammond is reluctant to say when he'll be officially back in his house, for fear of jinxing his good fortune, the progress has had an effect.

"I feel different, " he said, as he strolled through his garden, picking some okra here, an eggplant there. He's especially proud of the towering papaya trees that he planted last summer next to his then-untouched house.

Dozens of green fruits hang from every tree. For a moment, he dares to say that next month, when the fruit begins to ripen, he might be back in his house. "But they're all volunteers, " he said again. "So I don't want to say, " he said.

. . . . . . .

Katy Reckdahl can be reached at kreckdahl@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3396.